Gameplay:Minit is a literal, bite-sized adventure game where you die every 60 seconds. It’s cute, charming, and quite daunting as you start to realize you could die more times in this game than in Dark Souls.

After your character picks up a cursed sword, a timer appears in the corner of the screen indicating that you can only live in 60-second increments. The game sends you back home after you die and you wake up in bed with the timer starting again immediately.

You are tasked with accomplishing as much as you can within that small time frame – exploring the environment, fighting enemies, solving puzzles, helping villagers, and more.

In Gameboy-era Zelda-like fashion, your character has a simple hack-and-slash attack with the sword that’s pretty useful. You use the same motion to block attacks and projectiles from enemies and to destroy obstructive objects in your path. There’s a stronger focus on movement than fighting, as you’re required to explore and find shortcuts more than anything.

Each quest leads you to obtaining better weapons and tools that you will find extremely useful in moving through the world in the shortest amount of time, like faster shoes that will allow you to zip through areas. Minit isn’t completely heartless as bed rests and other homes you find along your way can act as your last checkpoint.

Puzzles can be both agonizing and fun. The game forces you into situations where you have no choice but to test-run through areas while figuring out a plan. In fact, the sooner you can find a shortcut to a new area the better, as it’ll make exploring so much easier.

There is no limit as to how many times your character can die, so this gives you the liberty to keep trying and exploring. Despite the name, Minit offers a pretty big map, with plenty of hidden rooms to discover.

Because of that, I nearly forgot the game’s main storyline which is to cure the curse from the sword. The quirky villagers and their often silly requests will also keep you busy. I was quite amazed at how much personality is packed into such a small game, as you’ll never know who or what you’ll run into next.

There weren’t any bugs or glitches to ruin the experience, but I did often run into roadblocks. It can be quite frustrating as you’re not given any guidance on where to go next or what to do. Even the quests you obtain from villagers are not logged anywhere.

I found that the answer to these roadblocks is to keep on exploring and hitting random objects with your sword until you find something of interest. However, this didn’t deter me from exploring, and it actually encouraged me more.

I appreciate the challenging nature of Minit and the well-mapped world that will lead you to many pleasant surprises. Even when you reach the ending, the game isn’t quite over, as a New Game+ will appear where you will have even less time and more quests.

Visuals:
In a monochrome, simplistic pixelated art form, Minit is a throwback to older, handheld video games. The style fits the theme in terms of being a straightforward adventure game.

There’s a ton of personality within its pixelated characters and world and the dialogue with villagers can be both endearing and hilarious, so it’s worth dying to hear what they have to say.

There are surprisingly large areas within the game which will make your journey difficult since you only have a minute to explore. I certainly felt overwhelmed whenever I ran into a new area, but it’s completely worth it to keep going.

Audio:
Minit (naturally) has adorable chiptune music to match the pixel art.

The music changes per area, but does not change when you’re running out of time. It can be at a slower rhythm and pace when you’re in a forest or by the sea, and can quickly change to sound more ominous when exploring a cave or ancient temple.

There are hardly any sound effects, but when you acquire a new item, the tune is very satisfying and the delightful retro soundtrack is worth listening to while questing in-game.

Online/Multiplayer:
This game is one player only with no online component.

Conclusion:Minit is an incredibly simplistic game that’s both addicting and intoxicating.

It will force you to loop back many times, but surprisingly it doesn’t feel time constraining. In fact, it allows more liberty than most games, making exploration and movement its main focus.

While paying homage to classic video games, Minit creates challenging puzzles and quests and requires memorization of its vast area maps to find the quickest shortcuts.

I cherished every literal second in the game and I’m excited to see what the developers have to offer next.

Score:

* All screenshots used in this review were taken directly from the game using the Share functionality on the PlayStation 4.

Sarahy Lopez is a new writer to PS Nation. She works as an assistant news editor and social media coordinator at her college newspaper. Born and raised in Chicago, she is a bookworm and video game nerd who has high hopes of entering Overwatch esports.